Scenic Route

Jeepers. Don’t I feel productive.

Library

I rode by Sully Branch yesterday to see what the place is like and to meet with the staff there. As it turns out, Sully Branch is even closer to my apartment than Winton Branch. It’s in a section of the city I haven’t visited since I got sober. I bought a lot of crack in the section between here and there. It was strange to go up Webster Ave during the daytime.

It’s a cute little library. I like the building a lot. But I agree with the staff, it’s just too small. And the way it was designed, it just can’t be expanded easily. Plus it occupies a corner of Webster Park, where it’s boxed-in by baseball diamonds. In two or three years it will move to larger space in the new Thomas P. Ryan Community Center.

Still, I like it for what it is. The circ desk, where I’ll work, is right smack in front of you when you enter. The children’s room, which even has a fireplace, is to the right. Everything else is to the left. All the shelving is built right in. While it looks incredible, it can’t be rearranged or expanded. You could double the shelving space in the adult section if you could take out what’s there and move it around, collapsing the aisles as you go.

The staff seemed nice. I could tell they’ve worked together for many years. I’ll be sort of a third wheel for quite some time, despite the way they welcomed me. Well, maybe it’s because of the way they welcomed me. It seemed like they suffered from low self-esteem—or at least, low library-esteem. Every topic was prefaced with something about how they have to do things differently because they’re smaller/older/less trafficked than Winton Branch. It was weird.

Possibly formerly “lost” client, and bike shit

Later in the afternoon, I phoned that client. He said that he’s giving the new board member just a little more time, but was planning to call me soon if things didn’t pan out. I thanked him and gave him my expected availabilities through the end of the month.

That job would buy a lot of bike parts.

But Monday night as I was mounting my snow tires, I was reminded that I’ll need to replace some parts on my current bike this year. Its wheels are cheap. I’m tired of breaking spokes, but even more, the rims are wearing away rapidly on the braking surface. The front one’s concave already.

I’ll have to decide whether to

1. treat the wheels as a disposable part and go cheap again,
2. upgrade to better rims in the hope of better longevity, or
3. bite the bullet and upgrade to disc brakes.

Of course, the wheelset I’m looking at for the new road bike—on sale—is more than I paid for this bike in the first place. And the wheelset I’d like for it is twice that amount. I haven’t done as much research on wheelsets for this bike, but I’ve found a few starting from half the price of this bike. I guess I’ll start looking at disc brakes too.

Apartment

On Monday I looked at a loft just up the street. I was wrong about which building it’s in. Turns out, it’s one of the main Village Gate Square buildings. I thought it was the “new” building further north. No, it’s the building that frames in the north side of the courtyard square. It’s restaurant and retail on the ground floor, mixed office and residential on the three upper floors.

This unit is on the top floor (4th counting as we do in the US, 3rd counting in the Euro style) in the northwest corner. It’s not quite 30’ (9m) square, or half-again the size of my current place.

I love the light. Two 30’ walls of windows. Even on a gray day with the blinds drawn, it was bright in there. I had lamps on at home.

Excepting a closet (over twice the size of mine here) and the bathroom (again, larger than here, but still with only a stall shower) it’s one big empty room. I was thinking screens or cubicle walls to section off a bedroom in the northeast corner.

The northwest corner is the corner that makes this a corner apartment (or office). That’s where I’d put the living room.

The kitchen occupies the southwest corner of the space. The layout leaves a lot to be desired—actually, it sucks. But there’s much more counter space and many more cabinets than there are here. It even has a full-sized stove. (Maybe the thermostat in the oven actually works too.) But strangely, there’s no range hood. I’ll have to put up my track lights in the kitchen there too. What is it about this landlord and dinky kitchen lights in the center of the room?

I’m not sure yet where I’d put the desk and PCs.

The floor was rough, industrial wood that’s been sanded and finished. The ceiling is office style grid. No ceiling fans, but it has A/C. Not sure if I could afford to run it, not sure if I could afford not to given the flat, black, tar roof on the other side of the ceiling.

It is, however, sprinklered, which is nice considering there’s a restaurant on the first floor, and how, since the day he moved-in, I’ve been concerned that dipshit next door would burn this place down. Three sets of fire stairs—one outside the door, one in the middle by the elevator, and one at the other end of the building.

Laundry is on the same floor. I’m not sure it there’s storage. And I have to take the bike in and out so see if that’s feasible. Although the unit’s current tenant had a mountain bike in there, taking a recreational bike up and down occasionally is a lot different than doing it with a fully loaded commuter (occasionally with overstuffed panniers) a couple of times a day.

I almost have myself talked into it. The big drawbacks are:

• the additional $175 per month
• purchase of screens or cubicle walls
• purchase (and associated wiring) of a range hood or over-the-range microwave
• purchase, wiring and installation of a couple of ceiling fans to reduce need for A/C
• the expense of moving

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 4:55 am EST and is filed under Generic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.